WEBSTER, WEST INDIAN PHYLLANTHUS A MONOGRAPHIC STLDY OF THE WEST INDIAN SPECIES OF PHYLLANTHUS * GRADY L. WVEBSTER With one plateSubgenus II. Kirganelia (Juss.) Webster. Jour. Arnold Arb. 37: 344. 1956. Kirganelia Juss. Gen. P1. 387. 1789. Phyllanthus sect. Kirganelia (Juss.) Muell. Arg. Linnaea 32: 11. 1863; DC. Prodr. 15(2):341. 1866. Trees, shrubs, or herbs with phyllanthoid branching: monoecious ordioecious. Male flower: calyx-lobes 5 or 6; disk of 5 or 6 segments; sta-mens 5 or 6, free or rarely united by the filaments; anthers dehiscing ver-tically or horizontally; pollen grains more or less globose, colporate.Female flower: calyx-lobes 5 or 6; disk usually as in male; ovary of 3-12carpels; styles mostly bifid, sometimes entire, often thickened and fleshy.Fruit capsular or baccate; seeds trigonous. This subgenus, typified by sect. Anisonema, comprises about 35 speciesin several closely related sections. None is native to the New World, andmost of the species are restricted to Africa and the Mascarene islands,although they also occur in India, China, Japan, Malaysia, and Australia. Subgenus Kirganelia includes not only some of the most primitive of thespecies with phyllanthoid branching but also a number of highly specializedherbaceous species (in sect. Floribundi) which form a transition to theherbaceous representatives of sect. Phyllanthus. A significant indicationof the relative primitiveness of this subgenus is the great floral variability. In the West Indies subgenus Kirganelia is represented by two verydifferent species belonging to two different sections. KEY TO THE SECTIONSFruit capsular; stamens 5, filaments free . 2. FloribundiFruit baccate; filaments connate in two groups .. 3. AnisonemaSect. 2. Floribundi Pax & Hoffm. Pflanzenw. Afr. 3(2): 22. 1921. Trees, shrubs, or herbs with phyllanthoid branching; leaves (in ours)membranous. not over 2 cm. long. Monoecious or dioecious, flowers inabbreviated unisexual or bisexual axillary cymules. Male flower: calyx-lobes 5, small, uninerved; disk of 5 discrete segments; stamens 5, filamentsfree: anthers dehiscing vertically or horizontally; pollen grains subglobose,4-colporate (in P. tenellus). finely reticulate. Female flower: pedicel long * Continued from volume XXXVII, p. 359.1957]
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